One of the hardest part of graduate school is having to hold multiple timelines at once. You have a degree, and all the milestones that lead up to it, unfolding over a matter of years. Time between milestones, or even between points of feedback, can be weeks or months. At the same time, we often have another timeline, one that operates on the day to day. Paying rent, having personal lives, jobs, family, exercise - all things that can easily consume the day in a way that both assure us that we are people, as well as graduate students, and distract from the Big Goals of graduate school.
Which timeline are you more focused on? This can be a hard question to answer, and for many of us, the answer is "both, but different timelines take priority at different times." My challenge to you this week is build in systems that help you keep your eye on both timelines regularly. Create a way to pay attention to the important, and the urgent.
To help, here’s a little time traveling exercise.
First, list out your goals for next month. This is the first step because breaking your near term goals into achievable chunks, and focusing on achieving them in the near future, is a sure-fire way to build energy and momentum.
Next, imagine yourself six months from now. Where do you want to be? What do you want to achieve by then, or start on around then?
Zoom out even farther, to a year from now. Imagine where you want to be, or suggest specific goals for yourself.
But this wouldn't be a Thrive PhD resource without also inviting you space to take those goals and be purposeful about the steps you will take towards them. What habits, resources, skills, or changes do you need to build or make to make these goals happen?
I like to think about goals as a form of time-traveling - we go forward in time to visit with one version of our future selves. To me, this feels more imaginative, more fun, and more curiosity-inducing than setting up a system of benchmarks against which I will judge future progress. If you are prone to using goals as a way to set high, high expectations for yourself that you regularly fall short of, or achieve but at a cost to your health and happiness, try shifting your perspective to time-traveling. Imagine yourself in the future, and then ask that person what they needed to get there. You might be surprised at how different it feels.